Outspoken Chinese writer, Murong Xuecun delivered an astonishing speech in Oslo this week. Delivered during Chinese literature week, an extract of the translated speech by Jane Weizhen Pan and Martin Merz is posted below. Xuecun begins: I am a...
The long arm of Chinese soft power has reached Bollywood. Indian censors have ordered the makers of Rockstar to cut or blur scenes showing images of the Tibetan national flag, which features in one of the film’s song and dance numbers. The movie...
This has been cross-posted from the New York Times with permission. Word Crimes from Jonah Kessel on Vimeo. “The worst effect of the censorship is the psychological impact on writers,” Murong said. “When I was working on my first book, I didn’t...
One of the most curious newspapers to come out of China in recent years is the English-language edition of the Global Times. Owned by the People’s Daily group, it is one of only two national papers published in English in mainland China, alongside...
O-pen Magazine was set up in March 2011 by Annie Baby, a popular novelist who got her start on the internet. On 1 November she announced on her Sina microblog that O-pen had been forced to stop publishing. In China, magazines need a national...
Cross posted with thanks to the Chinese Media Project for the translation I haven’t written anything since [my July post] “Nation Derailed.” In point of fact, I’m not very diligent about my writing, and each time I do finish writing something and...
Chinese netizens, writers and media figures have rallied to the cause of blind activist lawyer Chen Guangcheng in recent weeks, facing risks of detention and harassment and beatings. Chinese blogger Zeng Jinyan describes the situation Efforts to...
Independent film festivals around the world are usually bustling affairs. This was not so in the case of the Sixth Beijing Independent Film Festival. The week-long event, scheduled to start last weekend, dampened down all its advertising for fear...
Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has been named the most powerful person in the art world in ArtReview magazine's Power 100 poll, which rates the contemporary art world's most influential figures. In an interview with BBC World Service's Global News, Ai...
This Thursday Hong Kong will host the world premiere of Dr. Sun Yat-sen after China abruptly cancelled the opera’s original world premiere at Beijing’s National Center for the Performing Arts. The opera, commissioned by Opera Hong Kong and the Hong...